29 June, 2009
A unique happenstance followed an ICEM workshop on Contract and Agency Labour (CAL) in Guinea recently: the Industrial Relations manager of Russian bauxite and steel producer RUSAL was expelled from the country following revelations at the conference of the company’s horrid labour practices in Guinea.
Mineworkers in Guinea, backed by leaders of the trade union federations, provided vivid evidence on working conditions, including child labour, at Compagnie des Bauxite de Kindla, RUSAL’s joint venture bauxite mining concern with the government.
The testimony resulted in the government, led by Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, to expel Anatoly Pantchenko from Guinea.
Trade unionists told how the RUSAL manager had organized a culture of outsourcing at the mine and at RUSAL’s wholly-owned Friguia alumina smelting plant. The company utilises some 120 outsourcing companies. Discussion centered on how the system has aggravated poverty and created extremely poor work conditions and salaries, leaving workers under RUSAL’s umbrella with little means for improved living conditions.
From left to right: Ibrahima Fofana, Rabiatou Sereh Diallo, Manfred Warda and Yamodou Touré
The report was not new to the ICEM. In 2007, after street protests in Guinea loosened the dictatorial powers of President Lansana Conté, Rabiatou Sereh Diallo, General Secretary of the National Confederation of Workers of Guinea (CNTG), visited the ICEM in Brussels. She and other trade union leaders from Guinea then told how RUSAL relies heavily on “phantom” subcontracting companies that are tied to Conté associates.
In December 2008, following the death of Conté, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara and a team of military officers took over the country. They immediately forged relations with the three main trade union federations and pledged to end corruption in the mining sector.
Since then, relations between RUSAL and the government have been tenuous, and ICEM’s CAL workshops in May provided all the evidence Moussa Camara needed to expel RUSAL’s top manager from Guinea. In mid-April, workers at the Friguia refinery staged a strike, and RUSAL – now the world’s second largest steelmaker – said the work stoppage was instigated by the government.
The ICEM’s CAL conference agreed on a plan of action for Guinea’s mining sector, which will see trade unions and the government push for a review of the national mining convention, a code that became obsolete and neglected under the corrupt Conté regime. Such a review will make it possible to properly address outsourcing, as well as to include guarantees on working conditions in employment contracts.
A new committee was established with the government that is tasked with carrying out the review. The committee is composed of 13 members, two of whom are trade union leaders.
The West African nation of Guinea holds two-thirds of the world’s bauxite deposits. A second multinational bauxite miner, called Halco, also operates in Guinea. But trade unionists tell the ICEM that work conditions there are far superior to those existing at RUSAL. Halco is an enterprise 51% owned by US-based Alcoa World Alumina and Alcan of Canada, with the remainder owned by Guinea’s government.